State of the Arts: Filmmaker Don Burton’s story of place is New Bedford

By Steven FroiasContributing Writer

Thursday

Jun 14, 2018 at 3:01 AM

It’s not everyone who can claim that they were rescued by Xena, Warrior Princess. But New Bedford filmmaker Don Burton can.

Picture it: Our young hero Burton is alone and destitute in Los Angeles — when destiny takes a hand.

Making deliveries to make ends meet, our future filmmaker knocks on the door of a production studio — which has just received an order for a massive job. It will collect all episodes of the hit TV show, “Xena: Warrior Princess” and package them into a box set.

But DVD consumers are a tough lot to please. They demand loads of extras. Who can direct, film and edit endless hours of footage to please Xena’s rabid fans?

Don Burton, that’s who.

Learning of the opportunity, Don gets the gig — and never looks back.

A bit of dramatic license aside, that’s essentially the script for Burton’s debut as a film professional on the West Coast. In all, he would spend about a dozen years in the business doing it all at the dawn of the digital age.

But if his entrance into the industry was almost, pardon the pun, unreel, the next chapter in his career seems almost surreal. Because after achieving success in and around Los Angeles, Burton’s next plot point asks us to employ what they call in the biz “a willing suspension of disbelief.”

He decided to continue his career in film ... from New Bedford, Massachusetts!

Which is why you’ll see his latest project, “Multitudes — Video Works by Don Burton” premiere at the New Bedford Art Museum during the Thursday, June 14 AHA! New Bedford.

From L.A. to New Bedford (!)

Don Burton is originally from Somerset. It’s where he began making films, essentially in one form or another since the third grade, he tells me.

When he attended UMass Dartmouth, he ended up with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture in 1997, however — which isn’t as surprising as it seems. Burton explains that the 3-D element of sculpture dovetails nicely with directing. Besides, he was really learning filmmaking on his own anyway.

After graduation, he headed West. And yes, there were some very lean times before his window of opportunity opened and he jumped through it.

What followed was an intense career in all aspects of filmmaking. Don’s very partial IMDb credits list him as everything from art director to editor to director on projects.

It was the sort of journeyman work that defines most careers in film. The definition of Don Burton’s life on the West Coast would be consummate professional — married to an artist’s vision.

It’s that artistic vision that eventually got star billing in the third reel, brought that movie to an end, and produced the sequel we’re watching today.

The East Coast pulled at his heartstrings. In spite of finding employment and success in the film capital of the world, the artist inside the professional wasn’t quite fulfilled.

“What really excites me are ‘stories of place,’” he says. As he contemplated moving back to the East Coast, he thought of moving to a place that was unique and proud of itself — and where he felt he could make a contribution.

Naturally, that was New Bedford.

Attracting the artistic-minded isn’t an original story for the city by now — but luring a filmmaker to it is a bit of a twist to the tale. The city and region isn’t exactly a hot destination in the film business.

Yet, it’s working — and allowing Burton to feel fulfilled creatively as well as professionally.

Black Spaces Matter and Multitudes

When he moved back East and to New Bedford, Don Burton went all in. He founded his own digital media company, Don Burton Media (donburtonmedia.com) to handle both his commercial and creative work.

The commercial work boasts a client roster that mixes up his West and East Coast selves. UMass and NBC Universal are on the list together. If Don’s first was Xena, he later went on to embrace a whole cast of heroes — as in being Production Designer for the DVD/Blu-Ray editions of the hit TV show, “Heroes.”

So, he’s making a New Bedford career as a filmmaker work, all right — but in the process, he’s doing something even larger. He’s bringing his skill as a filmmaker to the city via a variety of projects that splice together his commercial aptitude with the artist in him, instead of the usual other way around.

Since arriving in the city, he’s made several short films in the area. “It Had to be Done,” a reimagining of Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart, premiered at ArtWorks! in 2014 (before it merged with the Art Museum).

“Always Stop for Rabbits” used regional landscapes and actors. Both films deliver a bit of the New Bedford region to the world; they are part of the international film festival scene.

Now, Don Burton is coming into an even more intense phase of his career here which is allowing him to realize the vision he brought back home with him.

“Multitudes” is one manifestation of that. “Black Spaces Matter” is another. Each allows him to tell ‘stories of place’ — which is why he came here in the first place.

“Black Spaces Matter” is the story of New Bedford’s Abolitionist Row off Union Street in the context of its architecture and importance in the city’s history and geography. Don — working with a team headed by UMass Dartmouth Assistant Professor Pamela Karimi — is project co-lead, digital media producer, director, editor.

The video installation was exhibited at Boston Architectural College this past winter. It comes home to New Bedford this December, when it will be shown at the UMass CVPA Star Store campus.

It’s part of a host of exhibits and programs celebrating and examining the role abolitionists played in New Bedford’s history. Especially appropriate given the fact that 2018 marks 200 years since the birth of former resident, Frederick Douglass.

“Multitudes — Video Works by Don Burton” is also very much about story of place, too. Burton invited people to share their own stories in front of a camera. The very personal interviews he conducted were then edited into 10-12 minute videos. Don writes of the project by way of promotional material:

“Like fossils to dinosaurs, I wonder what will typify humankind after we’re gone: something anxiety-ridden, like Munch’s ‘The Scream’ or an impenetrable acceptance that our species was both grand and insignificant, marvelous and self-destructive?

“I imagine one way to fathom the passing of our species is to acknowledge our multitudes, individually and shared as a civilization – our dreams, our triumphs, our fears, our regrets – our experiences in simply being. Multitudes is interactive. I invite you to watch and listen to these human moments, and to leave your story on the ecosystem of this installation.”

The work will be shown at the New Bedford Art Museum on a continuous loop for the duration of its run, through Aug. 3. The free and open to the public Opening Reception is Thursday, June 14 from 6 to 8 p.m.

One interactive feature of the installation involves a large wash of light symbolizing water rising up from the floor around you as you view the videos, simulating a totally immersive experience.

Another is that viewers are very much invited to become part of the project by lending their stories to it, by taking advantage of a storyboard and instant Polaroid camera left at the scene.

That’s part of Don Burton’s vision of film. He says, “What happens around a creative project is just as important as the project itself.” When discussing his projects, he’s quick to share credit with many others in the creative community here, such as UMass faculty members Lee Blake and Marta del Pozo and downtown artist Beatriz Oliveira, who he feels was a writing partner on “Multitudes.”

He understands that the medium is an inherently collaborative creative process, involving writers, actors, producers, set designers, cinematographers, musicians and all sorts of people.